


That's the Spirit

by hellkitty



Category: Transformers Animated (2007)
Genre: F/M, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-17
Updated: 2014-02-17
Packaged: 2018-01-12 20:32:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1199194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellkitty/pseuds/hellkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little Red/Rod for tf-rare-pairing's three part harmony challenge. Post-canon, possibly <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/428925">Cybertronian Nights AU </a> but obviously you don't need to read that AU for this to make sense. </p>
<p>Character A: TFA Red Alert<br/>Character B: TFA Rodimus<br/>Setting: in the infirmary<br/>Prompt Lyrics:<br/>Times will be bad/Times will be good/Things I wish I hadn't done and/Some I wish I would - American Noise, Skillet</p>
            </blockquote>





	That's the Spirit

One benefit of having a command code was scrap like this, sneaking into the medbay after hours. The last thing he needed was to bring Security in on this.  What? Rodimus wasn’t a vandal or anything bad. In fact, if anything, this was really kind of boring and sad, that this was what he was stooping to now: sneaking into medbays in the middle of the night. He, the youngest recipient of the Valor’s Flame. 

Kind of a step down.

But it was hard to be  a war hero when there was no war and you'd spent the last whole bunch of it in a medtank spalling off Red Rust.  And all he had left was a pile of commendations  and a medical record he was trying to put and keep in the past, where it belonged.  Where he hoped his glory days weren't. 

Downer of a thought, he chastised himself, lifting the frame of the skylight with a thieve's care. He was no cyberninja, but he knew a bit about stealth. Sure, he normally preferred the Big Entrance, but desperate times, and all that.

Right, here was go, Rodimus thought, lowering himself through the skylight carefully. His code has disabled the alarms, but locks, yeah, still kind of a thing. During the war, he’d have just busted through them: a well placed arrow through the core, or a boot to the frame or…something. But now he had to worry about stuff like property damage and paperwork and slag like that. Trust him, it was way easier to break in through the skylight than deal with any of that.

His feet lowered through the dark office, and he stretched his toeplates down blindly, reaching for something…something that was down there. Maybe he should have checked with his headlamps first? Nah, that would ruin the surprise.

A thing, under his right toeplate, flat and hard.  Good. He lowered down more of his weight onto it.  All he had to do was get on the ground, find a computer terminal and he’d be in and out in five microcycles. Easy.

Easy, until the whatever-he-was-resting-on suddenly slipped under his foot, and his whole weight came crashing down, aft first, onto the desk. Okay, there was the surprise all right. Just not the kind he'd been going for.

Well, he wanted to find a computer terminal. Just, you know, not with his aft. “Frag,” he whispered, but after the clattering crash of his entrance it was really just catching echoes.

And another ‘frag’ as the room flooded with light, followed by an, “Oh. Hey. Red. Fancy meeting you here.”

“Yes. Fancy that. At my place of employment.” She lowered her interlink, letting it morph back into her arm. 

Rodimus rolled off the desk, because, you know, maybe actually being able to stand up normally would give him some whatever the scrap Kup called it. Right. ‘Gravitas’.  “Bit late to be at work,” he said, blandly. 

“Bit late for a visit,” Red Alert retorted. Yeah, she was having precisely none of what he was dishing. She looked up pointedly at the open skylight. “Using the door too mundane?”

“Yeah, that. I was, you know, checking the skylight. You know. Security conscious.”

“Ah. I see.” And it was pretty clear from her tone of voice and the way she folded her arms over her chassis that what she was seeing was what a terrible liar Rodimus was. 

“Look. Red. It’s just….”  It’s just what?  Frag. The whole reason he broke in here was because he didn’t want to explain this to anyone. “…the Red Rust.”

Her face changed, a subtle softening that only someone who’d served with her for a long time would recognize. “Red Rust.  You have symptoms?”

“No! I mean, I just, you know, wanted to make sure.” He drove himself crazy, checking every part of his body, waking up some nights from dreams of the pain that was so real he thought time had folded itself back upon him and he was still in a medtank, soaking it off. All he’d learned was that he couldn’t trust himself about it. He needed science.

“Make sure.” 

“Yeah, hey, look, Red. I’m going to tell you the truth.”

“Auspicious start.”

He sighed.  He was trying to be straight up with her. Was a little compassion too much to ask? Then again, it was Red Alert. “There’s a job I have to do. A mission.”

“A mission. So you have paperwork.”

Frag. She wasn’t giving him a micrometer, was she?  “It’s, uh, not that kind of mission. And you know how I am with paperwork.” One word: airlock. “Look, it’s this thing Kup’s cooked up. And, it’s, you know, useful. Getting out and doing something, instead of polishing my armor for Sentinel’s next parade.”  His mouth twisted, because the Red Rust was terrible, but the boredom of peacetime was a pretty close second. Standing for cycles through another of Sentinel's droning self-aggrandizing speeches, while he tried to find the cameras for the best angle on his chin? Nearly lethal.

“Ah. Another of Kup’s not entirely aboveboard ventures.” She turned to a cabinet, rifling through it for a moment, before turning back. “I’ve put on my surprised face for the occasion.”

“Red. I mean, he’s doing me a favor. Getting away from this place? I kind of need it.” Too much temptation here, and way too much engex to drown his troubles in.  A ship on a mission? It was exactly what he needed. 

“Kup’s favors always end up doing him favors.”  She reached forward, grabbing Rodimus’s arm.

“What are you--?” Don’t panic, Rodimus. If she calls Security, you can come up with…something. Or at least hope Kup will bail you out of the brig.

“You wanted a check out, right?”  Her voice was distracted, and almost a little softer, distracted by reading her scanner.  “I’m a little more thorough than the throwaway tests.”

Rodimus subsided, confused, till she pulled back.

“You’re clear.” 

He couldn’t hide the sigh of relief, mentally chastising his body for haunting him with symptoms and memories. “Thank the Allspark.”

“Or science,” Red Alert said, tartly. “I didn’t put all that hard work into treatments for someone else, much less something, to take the credit.”

“I. Uh. I didn’t know.” She? It was her?  Then again, he should have known.  It was kind of touching, and honestly, he didn’t know how to handle the sudden hard swell of his spark at the though.

She shrugged, deactivating her interlink again. “Let’s just say you’re not the only one a little at loose ends with the end of the war.”

“Hey, you know, I mean, there’s a slot for a medic on the ship, if you want.” One he’d just made up, but he had a feeling Kup would approve, especially if he knew who the medic was.  If someone was going to keep Rodimus on the straight and narrow, it was Red Alert. 

“Hm. Someone’s got to keep you out of trouble.” She tapped her chin, considering. “Then again, a medic might just enable you to be reckless.”

“You mean, be myself.” He flashed a cheeky grin. It felt a bit like dusting off a relic, taking it out of storage, not quite sure it still fit.   “Besides. I don’t hear a ‘no’.”

“Because it’s not,” she said, frowning.  “I’ll need a few days. Because some of us want to go through channels and give notice.”

He rocked back, a little stunned. “Yeah? I mean, really?” Well, maybe the old Rod Charm was still capable of throwing a few sparks.  The smile settled in, feeling a bit more natural. 

“Don’t get your hopes up,” she said.  “I just don’t want another medic to have to deal with your nonsense."

Too late. His hopes were already up. He took her hands, almost dancing around her in a circle.  “You just want me all to yourself.”

“Oh please.”

“Just think about it. You and me, alone, surrounded by stars…” He winked. Yeah, even went for the wink, and he suddenly felt more like his old self than he had in cycles. “Kind of romantic, don’t you think?”

“In your fraggin’ dreams.” Her optics rolled.

“Actually, yeah.” Because she was kind of hot. And because she didn’t fall instant prey to the Rod Charm.  He liked a challenge.  And she liked…who knew? She liked him enough to work on a cure for the Red Rust, which sounded like plenty. His hands shifted, settling onto her narrow waist. “Come on.  It’ll be fun.”

“It’ll be stupid and dangerous and full of bad decisions.”  She sighed, but she didn’t move his hands off her waist. “Starting with this one.” She sucked in a deep vent of air, and before Rodimus could figure out what she was up to, her mouth was on his, and despite her cold exterior, the kiss was warm and soft, her EM field tempering against him. 

Wow.  Yeah. Wow.  Rodimus just stood there, leaning into the kiss, his engine giving an obvious and slightly embarrassing rev, until she pulled away. "H-hey, you know, I could show you the ship...?"

She pushed him away, but the hand on his chassis was playful, and the frown a little teasing. "Let's not make all the bad decisions in one night."

Well, that was a promising statement. And suddenly this mission of Kup's was looking a whole lot more fun.

 

 


End file.
